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White House Contempt for Bloggers and “Left of the Left” is a Pattern
Firedoglake —
... As Glenn Greenwald notes today in a superb column, that just doesn’t pass the smell test:
Just this weekend, a “top gay Democrat close to Obama” was granted anonymity by Politico to dismiss administration ...
Greenwald: Gay issues, the "Fringe Left" and the liberal veal pen
Open Left - Quick Hits's RSS Feed —
Link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/g...
The only thing remarkable about the comments Harwood passed on is that anyone would be surprised by them. In that regard, the furor over Obama's complete inaction on gay issues vividly illustrates the same elements that shape political controversies in virtually every other area -- from war to civil liberties to health care and beyond:
* Pretty words and inspiring pageantry from the President, accompanied by endless inaction or contradictory policies;
...
Not Seeing What You Don't Want To See
TalkLeft —
Steve Benen: I just haven't seen the evidence that the White House considers the netroots and progressive activists in general as some kind of annoying sideshow to be ignored. On the contrary, I've seen the opposite. Heh. I would take the time to refute this, but Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher and John Aravosis prebutted Benen's silliness. I do not think Benen is a shill, in that he is not intentionally in the tank for the White House, but rather he WANTS to not see what is obvious to reasonable people. In essence, he ...
Blogtalk: Gays, Bloggers and Pajamas
The Caucus —
... in Daily Dish: “So now we see how they really feel.” Glenn Greenwald writes in Salon.com: “The only thing remarkable about the comments Harwood passed on is that anyone would be surprised by them.” La Shawn Barber, who calls herself “ ...
More on the "fringe Internet left"
AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth —
Glenn Greenwald raises even more examples of a pattern, some that I'd already forgotten: Just this weekend, a "top gay Democrat close to Obama" was granted anonymity by Politico to dismiss administration critics on gay issues as "naive." Just six weeks ago, an equally cowardly "senior White House adviser" hiding behind anonymity told told The Washington Post that the only people who cared about the public option in health care were "the left of the left" -- those same fringe, irrational extremists. In June, an anonymous "friend of John Brennan's" told Jane Mayer in ...
Quote For The Day
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
... v. left" and even
"Democrat v. GOP" drama dominates most of our discourse, yet at this
point it is a distracting and largely irrelevant food fight. It's the
Democrats who have won the last two elections by large margins and
wield all the power, and increasingly the defining conflict is between
those whose overarching allegiance is to Obama and the Party as ends in
themselves, and those who see those things as mere means to more
important ends," - Glenn Greenwald, Salon. ...
What an "Advisor" Is
J. Bradford DeLong's Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles —
... Gay issues, the "fringe left" and the liberal veal pen: Thousands of Americans marched in Washington yesterday to demand a fulfillment of Obama's long-stated and oft-repeated commitments on issues of gay equality, in what the NYT calls "the largest demonstration for gay rights here in nearly a decade." That protest was preceded the day before by a virtual consensus 0f gay rights activists expressing extreme disappointment and frustration with Obama's speech to the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday night, where he merely repeated the same pledges he's been making ...
Watching the defectives
The Sideshow —
As Glenn Greenwald notes, the administration's attitude toward people who keep insisting on adhering to what were always presumed to be core values of the Democratic Party has been to consistently treat "the base" as some sort of far-left lunatic fringe, And yet, they are pretending that when yet another anonymous denizen of the White House makes yet another dismissive remark about this lefty fringe, it "does not reflect White House thinking at all." Oh, yes it does: "Just this weekend, a "top gay Democrat close to Obama" was granted anonymity by Politico to dismiss ...
If Harry Reid Allows the Silent Filibuster, It’s All on Him
Firedoglake —
... I guess they’d offer George Bush’s cretin judges a courtesy they won’t offer to Americans on something 77% of the country wants. So, I’ll offer a slight edit of Glenn Greenwald from yesterday: ...
Blue Gal — ... Glenn Greenwald puts meat on the bones and brings us back to, ahem, real issues. Thanks be to Allah, we fringe Leftys are gonna keep pushing. I really don't give a rat what Rahm or anybody else in that building thinks of me. ...
Las Vegas Sun on the Public Option: “The Ball’s in Reid’s Court”
Firedoglake —
Harry Reid has been trying to shake off personal responsibility for the inclusion of a public option in the Senate bill for a while.
He tried to lay off responsibility on the White House, as if the Senate wasn’t an independent and coequal branch of government. Then he tried the old “we don’t have 60 votes” song, as if he hadn’t been telling us for years that all we need are 60 votes in the caucus and we’re home free.
Reid’s excuses are running out of gas, and Nevada has noticed. There’s ...
